I caught some story somewhere about the growing waistlines of Americans. It was the author's theory that Americans have no food culture and are therefore searching for a food identity, and apparently eating our way to that identify.
I think this is bumbkis. Every region in America has a food culture and identity. It may only be 200 years old, but its there. New England has lobster and a whole range of clam chowders. New York has deli's, hot dog carts, and pizza. Maryland eats crabcakes. The southern states have barbecue and sweet tea. It's chili's in the Southwest, avocado sushi in California, jello and funeral potatoes in Utah.
What America has is a fantasy about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and accumulating stuff--a big house, a fast car, an airplane, jewelry, staff...
Food is the literal manifestation of the consumeristic gluttony. Supersized fries are a metaphor for the American Dream.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Questioning a statistics.
I saw a random fact quote in a magazine yesterday. (Is that opening as lazy as beginning with "I was sharing a taxi"?) I didn't double check it anywhere, but I have been thinking about it. It said "90% of pregnancies that test positive for Down Syndrome are aborted".
Really?! 90%? That seems really high, particularly for such a common birth defect. It's a deformity where the fetus is still viable, the families who include a down syndrome child report being happy, and while the defect results in lower IQ and cardiovascular problems, many affected persons do live out full productive lives.
The statistic as printed indicates that 90% of people who find out they're having a child with DS will choose to end it, with an implication that more women should be tested so that they have an opportunity to "opt out" so to speak. I don't think that's the whole story.
First, the tests are usually offered to older mothers (over 35 yrs). They're also more likely to be more affluent--women who delayed their families to develop their careers for example, or families that can afford to have the tests. They're usually extras--so insurance often won't cover the cost.
The tests also result in a high rate of false positives. So having one test will lead to an extra level of anxiety while the parents wait for the test confirmation.
Perhaps its only people who will choose to terminate that have the tests. After all, why go through the extra expense and anxiety if your choice is already made and your actions won't change?
The follow on question is: Where along the spectrum of pregnancy outcomes do people draw the line to terminate? Which lives are more valuable? Down Syndrome is something that can be justified either way. Clearly there are other defects where most people would agree to end the pregnancy--I hope that's somewhere on the non-viable end of the spectrum. There are places where the ethics become very cloudy--China for example, where reportedly the decision is made based on gender. Most of us in the US think that's abhorrent.
There are other traits that are might be cloudy even here--autism, mental illness, diabetes. There are traits that are desirable, and a few people might be willing to select for--athleticism, charisma, IQ, height. (No, I'm not joking--apparently there are a number of Little People who are selecting for dwarfism and a number of deaf people selecting for deafness so that their children will share the same types of life experiences.)
Where do you draw the line? Do we as a society want to allow people to select against birth defects? Conversely, should we allow families to select in favor of birth defects where the parents are already affected? Should we even try to set limits, or is it best to leave those decisions--all of those decisions--with the future parents?
Really?! 90%? That seems really high, particularly for such a common birth defect. It's a deformity where the fetus is still viable, the families who include a down syndrome child report being happy, and while the defect results in lower IQ and cardiovascular problems, many affected persons do live out full productive lives.
The statistic as printed indicates that 90% of people who find out they're having a child with DS will choose to end it, with an implication that more women should be tested so that they have an opportunity to "opt out" so to speak. I don't think that's the whole story.
First, the tests are usually offered to older mothers (over 35 yrs). They're also more likely to be more affluent--women who delayed their families to develop their careers for example, or families that can afford to have the tests. They're usually extras--so insurance often won't cover the cost.
The tests also result in a high rate of false positives. So having one test will lead to an extra level of anxiety while the parents wait for the test confirmation.
Perhaps its only people who will choose to terminate that have the tests. After all, why go through the extra expense and anxiety if your choice is already made and your actions won't change?
The follow on question is: Where along the spectrum of pregnancy outcomes do people draw the line to terminate? Which lives are more valuable? Down Syndrome is something that can be justified either way. Clearly there are other defects where most people would agree to end the pregnancy--I hope that's somewhere on the non-viable end of the spectrum. There are places where the ethics become very cloudy--China for example, where reportedly the decision is made based on gender. Most of us in the US think that's abhorrent.
There are other traits that are might be cloudy even here--autism, mental illness, diabetes. There are traits that are desirable, and a few people might be willing to select for--athleticism, charisma, IQ, height. (No, I'm not joking--apparently there are a number of Little People who are selecting for dwarfism and a number of deaf people selecting for deafness so that their children will share the same types of life experiences.)
Where do you draw the line? Do we as a society want to allow people to select against birth defects? Conversely, should we allow families to select in favor of birth defects where the parents are already affected? Should we even try to set limits, or is it best to leave those decisions--all of those decisions--with the future parents?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Carbon
Pop vocabulary is full of 2 types of buzzwords right now. It's either Obama_____ (as in Obama-mama, Obama-mania, Obama-nation, Obam-ination) or Carbon_________ (carbon-footprint, carbon-balance, carbon-impact).
There's a [gold]rush to minimize one's carbon-footprint by buying carbon-offsets. The way it works is that 1-you fly to Spain 2-Booking online, you see a popup add telling you (gasp) how many carbon-units you're releasing into the atmosphere on the flight as a per person basis 3-The ad suggests you buy carbon-offsets, in the form of trees planted in the Amazon Rainforest to soak up the carbon you just released. 4-You do, and receive a warm feelgood that your trip is carbon-neutral.
That all seems fine and good, but here's the rub.
1--The newly planted trees will indeed be soaking up atmospheric carbon. You can think of it as "Yours", but its more likely offsetting the carbon released by the slash and burn activity going on deeper in the forest to make way for cattle pasture. There will still be a net release of carbon to the atmosphere during your flight.
2--The Amazon Rainforest's natural state is, in fact, forest. By that I mean that after the land has been spent on pasture and abandoned, it will eventually return to forest. This process will take a while--the soil will have been depleted, and it takes time for trees to grow, but eventually the forest will return. (Over the last 100 years, New England has reforested from the slash and burn practices of the colonists. New England was >95% forest at one time, the settlers had converted it to >90% pasture by 1800, and in 1990, it was >75% forest again--numbers are approximate. The forests returned without the efforts of Peace Corp volunteers with shovels. Similarly, the Western US is now being irrigated so that the deserts will blossom like the rose. It's a temporary situation. If the people of Salt Lake were to abandon their lush lawns, the sagebrush would return.)
3--The trees you've paid to have planted may upset the balance of the forest. How? It's likely that the trees that are planted (if they are actually planting trees, and not just scamming Al Gore and the American tourists) will likely be of just a few species. They were probably selected based on one or two traits. Perhaps they were chosen because those species have marketable qualities--exotic furniture lumber, useful for paper, straight for building material, who knows--maybe they're just easily propogated. Worst case is that the trees you are paying to have planted as a carbon offset are actually becoming a giant agricultural project, subsidizing the corporatization of the Amazon. At best, the trees were nursery grown and are all seeds from a small number of mature trees, so they have limited genetic variability. A natural forest is made up of a tremendous variety of species. The seeds may be blown in on the wind or carried in by bird droppings. However they arrive, they'll possess a great deal of genetic variability which will contribute to the general health and vigor of the forest.
I want to replace the concept of carbon-footprint with a more practical concept. Let's call it the carbon-1/2 life. That is the time it takes for 50% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere to be absorbed back into the earth. So, if an activity has a carbon-1/2 life of 10 years, and 100 grams of CO2 are released, in a decade, 50 grams of CO2 will still remain in the atmosphere. After 20 years 25 grams will remain, after 50 years 6 grams will remain. It will take 80 years for 99% of the released carbon to leave the atmosphere.
Here's an example. I live in the temperate forest of New England. My heating sources are 1-solar gain through the windows, 2-Onsite and sustainably harvested wood, 3-propane.
The heat from the sun really is carbon-neutral, or to be more accurate carbon-free. No carbon is released or exchanged, so the carbon-1/2 life = zero days. I neglected the energy used to fabricate, ship, and install my windows, but you get the idea.
The heat from the wood is also carbon-neutral. By that I mean that as trees are cut, they are replaced by seedlings. It's a natural process, and eventually, the seedlings will absorb enough atmospheric CO2 to offset the cut trees. Therefore heat from the wood is carbon-neutral, but its not carbon free. In fact, the CO2 released into the atmosphere through combustion will persist for approximately 50 years, until the seedlings grow to the size of the trees that were cut down. Perhaps it takes 5 years for the young trees that sprout in what had been shaded by the cut trees to reach 1/2 the size of the trees that were cut, so the carbon-1/2 life is 25 years, and it will take 200 years for 99% of the carbon to be removed from the atmosphere. This is simplified a bit--I ignored the gas it took to power the chainsaw, but its a fair approximation.
The heat from the propane will have a very long carbon-1/2 life, millenia. There is no easy way to remove it from the atmosphere. A partial list of suggested approaches follows:
1-store the carbon deep in the ocean waters. This is a natural process, but it too is a delicate balance. Storing excess carbon in the seas will acidify the waters and have repercussions that I won't detail here. 2-Store the carbon in the earth, possibly using it to fill the voids created by drilling for oil. Maybe, but this is a very expensive process. 3-Plant trees--see my above comments.
Realistically, the only way to remove the carbon released by burning fossil fuels is to grow large amounts of biomass, bury it deep in the ground where the products of decay won't release the CO2 into the atmosphere negating your efforts. Wait for the heat and pressure of the pile to restore the fossil fuels. Keep in mind that there is limited cropland available for growing the biomass (you could create more by slashing and burning some rainforest, but I again direct you to the above comments), it will take a large amount of biomass to resorb the amount of CO2 resultant from the use of fossil fuels, and there is not a convenient place to store the biomass while waiting for gas and oil to form.
You still have to keep an eye on so-called carbon-free options. Solar and wind are carbon free excluding the energy used to manufacture equipment, ship it, install, and maintenance of the solar collectors or turbines. The carbon-1/2 life of such energy sources is very low, but its still not zero. Corn based ethanol has a higher carbon-1/2 life when you include the energy required to process corn into ethanol. By some calculations, it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than is available in the ethanol. The carbon-1/2 life of nuclear energy doesn't fare much better when you consider the enormous cost of building a nuclear powerplant and consider the environment impact of the cooling tower: fish killed during water intake (carbon-1/2 life equals decades), fish/plankton/seaweed killed from heated water released from plant (carbon-1/2 life equals decades) energy used operating and guarding the nuclear plant (carbon-1/2 life equals millenia).
Bottom line--no matter who makes a buck from your desire to reduce your carbon impact, fossil fuel consumption is going to adversely impact the atmospheric CO2 balance. Renewable combustion also has an impact on the atmospheric CO2 balance, but a gallon of vegetable option has a much lower carbon-1/2 life than a gallon of gasoline. Some renewables like solar and wind power are relatively carbon-free, with a carbon-1/2 life close to zero.
The term carbon-1/2 life gives a much more rigorous comparison of our energy options than carbon footprint. It's also a catchy phrase for everyday conversation.
There's a [gold]rush to minimize one's carbon-footprint by buying carbon-offsets. The way it works is that 1-you fly to Spain 2-Booking online, you see a popup add telling you (gasp) how many carbon-units you're releasing into the atmosphere on the flight as a per person basis 3-The ad suggests you buy carbon-offsets, in the form of trees planted in the Amazon Rainforest to soak up the carbon you just released. 4-You do, and receive a warm feelgood that your trip is carbon-neutral.
That all seems fine and good, but here's the rub.
1--The newly planted trees will indeed be soaking up atmospheric carbon. You can think of it as "Yours", but its more likely offsetting the carbon released by the slash and burn activity going on deeper in the forest to make way for cattle pasture. There will still be a net release of carbon to the atmosphere during your flight.
2--The Amazon Rainforest's natural state is, in fact, forest. By that I mean that after the land has been spent on pasture and abandoned, it will eventually return to forest. This process will take a while--the soil will have been depleted, and it takes time for trees to grow, but eventually the forest will return. (Over the last 100 years, New England has reforested from the slash and burn practices of the colonists. New England was >95% forest at one time, the settlers had converted it to >90% pasture by 1800, and in 1990, it was >75% forest again--numbers are approximate. The forests returned without the efforts of Peace Corp volunteers with shovels. Similarly, the Western US is now being irrigated so that the deserts will blossom like the rose. It's a temporary situation. If the people of Salt Lake were to abandon their lush lawns, the sagebrush would return.)
3--The trees you've paid to have planted may upset the balance of the forest. How? It's likely that the trees that are planted (if they are actually planting trees, and not just scamming Al Gore and the American tourists) will likely be of just a few species. They were probably selected based on one or two traits. Perhaps they were chosen because those species have marketable qualities--exotic furniture lumber, useful for paper, straight for building material, who knows--maybe they're just easily propogated. Worst case is that the trees you are paying to have planted as a carbon offset are actually becoming a giant agricultural project, subsidizing the corporatization of the Amazon. At best, the trees were nursery grown and are all seeds from a small number of mature trees, so they have limited genetic variability. A natural forest is made up of a tremendous variety of species. The seeds may be blown in on the wind or carried in by bird droppings. However they arrive, they'll possess a great deal of genetic variability which will contribute to the general health and vigor of the forest.
I want to replace the concept of carbon-footprint with a more practical concept. Let's call it the carbon-1/2 life. That is the time it takes for 50% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere to be absorbed back into the earth. So, if an activity has a carbon-1/2 life of 10 years, and 100 grams of CO2 are released, in a decade, 50 grams of CO2 will still remain in the atmosphere. After 20 years 25 grams will remain, after 50 years 6 grams will remain. It will take 80 years for 99% of the released carbon to leave the atmosphere.
Here's an example. I live in the temperate forest of New England. My heating sources are 1-solar gain through the windows, 2-Onsite and sustainably harvested wood, 3-propane.
The heat from the sun really is carbon-neutral, or to be more accurate carbon-free. No carbon is released or exchanged, so the carbon-1/2 life = zero days. I neglected the energy used to fabricate, ship, and install my windows, but you get the idea.
The heat from the wood is also carbon-neutral. By that I mean that as trees are cut, they are replaced by seedlings. It's a natural process, and eventually, the seedlings will absorb enough atmospheric CO2 to offset the cut trees. Therefore heat from the wood is carbon-neutral, but its not carbon free. In fact, the CO2 released into the atmosphere through combustion will persist for approximately 50 years, until the seedlings grow to the size of the trees that were cut down. Perhaps it takes 5 years for the young trees that sprout in what had been shaded by the cut trees to reach 1/2 the size of the trees that were cut, so the carbon-1/2 life is 25 years, and it will take 200 years for 99% of the carbon to be removed from the atmosphere. This is simplified a bit--I ignored the gas it took to power the chainsaw, but its a fair approximation.
The heat from the propane will have a very long carbon-1/2 life, millenia. There is no easy way to remove it from the atmosphere. A partial list of suggested approaches follows:
1-store the carbon deep in the ocean waters. This is a natural process, but it too is a delicate balance. Storing excess carbon in the seas will acidify the waters and have repercussions that I won't detail here. 2-Store the carbon in the earth, possibly using it to fill the voids created by drilling for oil. Maybe, but this is a very expensive process. 3-Plant trees--see my above comments.
Realistically, the only way to remove the carbon released by burning fossil fuels is to grow large amounts of biomass, bury it deep in the ground where the products of decay won't release the CO2 into the atmosphere negating your efforts. Wait for the heat and pressure of the pile to restore the fossil fuels. Keep in mind that there is limited cropland available for growing the biomass (you could create more by slashing and burning some rainforest, but I again direct you to the above comments), it will take a large amount of biomass to resorb the amount of CO2 resultant from the use of fossil fuels, and there is not a convenient place to store the biomass while waiting for gas and oil to form.
You still have to keep an eye on so-called carbon-free options. Solar and wind are carbon free excluding the energy used to manufacture equipment, ship it, install, and maintenance of the solar collectors or turbines. The carbon-1/2 life of such energy sources is very low, but its still not zero. Corn based ethanol has a higher carbon-1/2 life when you include the energy required to process corn into ethanol. By some calculations, it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than is available in the ethanol. The carbon-1/2 life of nuclear energy doesn't fare much better when you consider the enormous cost of building a nuclear powerplant and consider the environment impact of the cooling tower: fish killed during water intake (carbon-1/2 life equals decades), fish/plankton/seaweed killed from heated water released from plant (carbon-1/2 life equals decades) energy used operating and guarding the nuclear plant (carbon-1/2 life equals millenia).
Bottom line--no matter who makes a buck from your desire to reduce your carbon impact, fossil fuel consumption is going to adversely impact the atmospheric CO2 balance. Renewable combustion also has an impact on the atmospheric CO2 balance, but a gallon of vegetable option has a much lower carbon-1/2 life than a gallon of gasoline. Some renewables like solar and wind power are relatively carbon-free, with a carbon-1/2 life close to zero.
The term carbon-1/2 life gives a much more rigorous comparison of our energy options than carbon footprint. It's also a catchy phrase for everyday conversation.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Subgenius Sighting
Last weekend, I caught this story on NPR Our Digital Lives, Monitored By A Hidden 'Numerati' .
Read it, or buy the book. It's a compilation of the Big Brother data mining habits of the credit card companies, grocery stores, websites, government agencies, and pathologists.
Some of what Mr Baker outlines in the book I already knew, some of it I imagined, some I feared, and some of it was a surprisingly positive reaching use of data mining (like the translation of spam deterring software to HIV mutation predicting models).
It's also a great segue into something I've been thinking about for a while. Privacy, who has a right to our personal information, and when or how should we protect it.
There's a wave of fear about online security and how to protect yourself from the dread online predators. This "protection" is usually directed at teens and preteens, particularly the girls. The big tools in use are 1-parental controls on website (easy for determined youth to supersede) and 2-police officers posing as young kids who trolling for a meet and sleep with middle aged men (Seriously, does anyone really think they'll find an actual sweet young thing in a chat room? It's seems a little incredible to me. I wonder if someone could wage a defense based on the probabilities and claim they were looking for a brush with danger in the form of a high speed car chase with the SVU.) Are either of these effective tools? Since I'm not part of the Numerati myself and too short of time to actually research it, I'll speculate that they're ineffective. I suggest that the best way to protect your children online is to develop a trust based relationship with your kids and encourage them to use the modicum of common sense that I'm sure they possess.
The new trend in online security is blog protection--word verification, sign in to post, or in the extreme--taking your blog private. Some of you are using these tools now. I hope they give you peace of mind. For now, my blog has no protection. Why? Well, first off, while my blog is public, I don't have the readership of the New York Times. I am comfortable with the assumption that my 20 or so readers are close friends or casual associates that find we have something in common (probably younguns). There are exceptions of course. I have received comments from someone wanting to sell me T-shirts with my blog posting (in Spanish) and someone making elaborate, inedible cakes--perfect for dieters birthdays. (If you want to dig for those comments, you can find them. I didn't delete them because of the sheer novelty of it.) I think its a little cumbersome to decode scribbles and always sign in to be able to post, and so I don't burden my guests with the trouble. If someday I receive multiple computer generated blog spam, or vicious anonymous posts, well then I'll look at ways to protect myself. But I view the protections the way I view antibiotics. Why give the germs something to build up resistance to? I'll save it for when I need it and hope it works then.
I basically think its a lot of trouble for someone to seek me out electronically as an individual. I share the philosophy of shoaling fish. There are a lot of people out there, and someone randomly looking for a victim will probably miss me and catch someone else. If I'm ever targeted by a perpetrator, I expect it to be someone I know, and any blanket defense won't be effective.
The predecessor to the Numerati is the market researcher. I actually like the market researcher. As an example, I think the car companies should ask consumers where to (and where not to) put cup holders. Even better if they ask me, and I decide where they should be. For a while I had a Nelson Ratings box on my TV. I loved it! I like my market research old style--based on broad demographic characteristics--the shoal.
I'm wary of tactics that try to go beyond demographic pools and go directly to the individual. I cherish my anonymity. I give fake names at the lunch counters (only partly because mine is difficult to spell and pronounce). I resist any suggestion at work that I should get a security clearance for govt programs. Sure that's partly because I don't want to spend all day in a windowless room and be searched on my way in and out, but mostly its because, while I don't have anything to hide, I don't feel like inviting the FBI to keep a file on me. I have a wallet full of grocery store customer cards, but the stores think its Regina Phalanges buying 2 gallons of whole milk a week. I am well aware that my credit card companies are keeping track of all of my purchases, and I consider becoming a cash only entity, but that's not really practical.
I don't mind market research, but I am very much opposed to data mining that targets me directly. I would like limits set on the corporate information gathering. Even more alarming is government data mining.
I have more thoughts on this, but no more time to commit to it now. Read the book and form your own.
Read it, or buy the book. It's a compilation of the Big Brother data mining habits of the credit card companies, grocery stores, websites, government agencies, and pathologists.
Some of what Mr Baker outlines in the book I already knew, some of it I imagined, some I feared, and some of it was a surprisingly positive reaching use of data mining (like the translation of spam deterring software to HIV mutation predicting models).
It's also a great segue into something I've been thinking about for a while. Privacy, who has a right to our personal information, and when or how should we protect it.
There's a wave of fear about online security and how to protect yourself from the dread online predators. This "protection" is usually directed at teens and preteens, particularly the girls. The big tools in use are 1-parental controls on website (easy for determined youth to supersede) and 2-police officers posing as young kids who trolling for a meet and sleep with middle aged men (Seriously, does anyone really think they'll find an actual sweet young thing in a chat room? It's seems a little incredible to me. I wonder if someone could wage a defense based on the probabilities and claim they were looking for a brush with danger in the form of a high speed car chase with the SVU.) Are either of these effective tools? Since I'm not part of the Numerati myself and too short of time to actually research it, I'll speculate that they're ineffective. I suggest that the best way to protect your children online is to develop a trust based relationship with your kids and encourage them to use the modicum of common sense that I'm sure they possess.
The new trend in online security is blog protection--word verification, sign in to post, or in the extreme--taking your blog private. Some of you are using these tools now. I hope they give you peace of mind. For now, my blog has no protection. Why? Well, first off, while my blog is public, I don't have the readership of the New York Times. I am comfortable with the assumption that my 20 or so readers are close friends or casual associates that find we have something in common (probably younguns). There are exceptions of course. I have received comments from someone wanting to sell me T-shirts with my blog posting (in Spanish) and someone making elaborate, inedible cakes--perfect for dieters birthdays. (If you want to dig for those comments, you can find them. I didn't delete them because of the sheer novelty of it.) I think its a little cumbersome to decode scribbles and always sign in to be able to post, and so I don't burden my guests with the trouble. If someday I receive multiple computer generated blog spam, or vicious anonymous posts, well then I'll look at ways to protect myself. But I view the protections the way I view antibiotics. Why give the germs something to build up resistance to? I'll save it for when I need it and hope it works then.
I basically think its a lot of trouble for someone to seek me out electronically as an individual. I share the philosophy of shoaling fish. There are a lot of people out there, and someone randomly looking for a victim will probably miss me and catch someone else. If I'm ever targeted by a perpetrator, I expect it to be someone I know, and any blanket defense won't be effective.
The predecessor to the Numerati is the market researcher. I actually like the market researcher. As an example, I think the car companies should ask consumers where to (and where not to) put cup holders. Even better if they ask me, and I decide where they should be. For a while I had a Nelson Ratings box on my TV. I loved it! I like my market research old style--based on broad demographic characteristics--the shoal.
I'm wary of tactics that try to go beyond demographic pools and go directly to the individual. I cherish my anonymity. I give fake names at the lunch counters (only partly because mine is difficult to spell and pronounce). I resist any suggestion at work that I should get a security clearance for govt programs. Sure that's partly because I don't want to spend all day in a windowless room and be searched on my way in and out, but mostly its because, while I don't have anything to hide, I don't feel like inviting the FBI to keep a file on me. I have a wallet full of grocery store customer cards, but the stores think its Regina Phalanges buying 2 gallons of whole milk a week. I am well aware that my credit card companies are keeping track of all of my purchases, and I consider becoming a cash only entity, but that's not really practical.
I don't mind market research, but I am very much opposed to data mining that targets me directly. I would like limits set on the corporate information gathering. Even more alarming is government data mining.
I have more thoughts on this, but no more time to commit to it now. Read the book and form your own.
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